By Holly Riddle
Michelle Damiano has been a member of the Happy Valley entrepreneurial ecosystem for a long while — since 1997, when she started running Impressions, a trade show display provider-turned-marketing agency, from her home’s enclosed front porch. At the time, she said, she wasn’t sure the area was the perfect place to start such a business — but she chose to take a risk and stick near family.
“Businesses like mine were much easier to build in larger cities or metropolitan areas,” she described. “In 1997, in State College, most businesses weren’t really familiar with working with an agency. Things like branding or integrated marketing weren’t talked about a lot and, at the time, most businesses leaned on an individual designer, or publications or media outlets, for any creative executions. Educating my target audience was a huge part of my business development process.”
Damiano’s efforts paid off and, within a few years, she outgrew the front porch and moved to an office in Lemont, where she said Impressions really started to grow even further.
“At one point there were four of us working in that office,” she recalled, “and when the UPS driver would show up with a portable trade show display that I had sold, I would tell him to just put it in my SUV, because we literally had no place to put it! I would just deliver it that day.”
Damiano’s focus eventually turned away from those trade show displays to encompass marketing as a whole. While the trade show displays were a sure need that Impressions could fill, strategic integrated marketing was a service many of her clients likewise required.
She explained of the business’s evolution, “I had some exposure to trade shows and I was shocked at how poorly most businesses represented themselves. They would say they were ‘cutting edge’ or ‘innovative,’ but their booth looked like the Brady Bunch built it in their garage. There was a disconnect and they weren’t even aware of it. So, I started talking to businesses about how they present themselves in the marketplace and that doing it well was vital to their success. Branding, trade shows and exhibits were the intake method for me to begin a relationship with them, that over time expanded into integrated marketing.”
“When I hear my clients tell me they knew they could depend on me, that makes it all worth it.”
Now, Impressions offers services and products that encompass advertising, marketing, branding, digital ads, tradeshow materials and more, and has worked with organizations and businesses including the Central Pennsylvania Convention & Visitors Bureau (now the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau), PennState Health and more. (The business has also moved from Lemont to State College, off East College Ave.)
Throughout Impressions’ lifetime, one thing that hasn’t changed is Damiano’s focus on relationships.
She said, “My mantra at Impressions has always been ‘We do life together.’ Life is unscripted. We never know what a day is going to bring for each of us or our clients… Relationships are the most important thing to me, so caring for my clients and my staff is important to me — to be there for them when they need me, whether that’s in a marketing sense or just in a ‘having their back’ sense. When I hear my clients tell me they knew they could depend on me, that makes it all worth it.”
Looking to the future, Damiano noted she’d love to expand her team’s account management and design capabilities, as well as to provide more consulting services.
Learn more at https://2impress.net/.
Holly Riddle is a freelance lifestyle and business journalist. She can be reached at holly.ridd@gmail.com.
